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Indian messaging app Hike may launch live-streaming following recent acquisition

Hike, the billion-dollar messaging app chasing WhatsApp in India, may be preparing to enter the live-streaming space following a recent acquisition.

The company, which is backed by Chinese internet giant Tencent, has acquired India-based live-streaming app Pulse and at least two of its founding team, according to a report from Inc42.

Hike declined to respond to our request for comment but, as Inc42 first noticed, the LinkedIn profiles of founders Prakhar Khanduja and Karthik Vaidyanath show that both have worked at Hike since February, on the growth team and head of engineering, respectively. Both men’s profiles report that InstaLively, the parent company behind Pulse, was acquired by Hike.

Despite an aggressive product development pipeline, the app is generally seen to lag WhatsApp by some margin in India. India is WhatsApp’s largest market globally with over 200 million users, but Hike has consistently stayed quiet on its user numbers. The last time it said anything publicly was in January 2016 when it crossed 100 million registered users.